The skies threatened rain, but aside from a few fat drops struggling down through the Texas air, the track remained dry through the end of the 2014 Shell Eco-marathon Americas. Given the haphazard way some of the vehicle bodies were held together – a bit of velcro or pieces of tape doing the job door hinges do on normal cars – this was a very good thing. The dry roads also meant that all of the teams were competing on an even footing, in this one aspect at least. After all, the 100-p

The 2011 Shell Eco-Marathon Americas, a competition that challenges high school and college students to design vehicles that travel using the least amount of energy, has expanded to include a new plug-in electric vehicle category. At next year's event, the fifth of its kind, plug-ins can enter the competition alongside hydrogen fuel cell and solar vehicles in the event's Electric-Mobility energy division. Entrants in the plug-in class are limited to fully electric vehicles that use lithium-ion b